Surely this can be applied here in Chicago, right?
Enwave and the City of Toronto have created an innovative cooling system that brings an alternative to conventional air conditioning to cool Toronto's downtown core — one that is clean, price competitive and energy efficient. A permanent layer of icy-cold (4°C) water 83 meters below the surface of Lake Ontario provides naturally cold water. This water is the renewable source of energy that Enwave's leading-edge technology uses to cool office towers, sports & entertainment complexes and proposed waterfront developments.
The system has been in operation since 2004.
A similar form of air condition is being used in Halifax, Nova Scotia. At Purdy's Wharf, we read here, it “provides all the cooling for the building for 10 ½ of the year. During the remaining six weeks, the buildings use conventional chillers, but the seawater is used to cool the condensers. The system was paid off in two years, and saves the complex more than $100,000 annually in electricity and maintenance costs.”
In the U.S., Cornell University is implementing its own deep lake water cooling system.
Wikipedia has an entry, of course.
You know that the water cooling system is grossly undersized; it is merely a publicity stunt, just like Toronto's sole wind turbine.
If Chicago were to learn from toronto, I recommend ignoring it.
Engineers have also turned the deep ocean as a cooling source. Because of the churning action of wind, waves, and currents, ocean water must be drawn from greater depths to get consistently cold temperatures.
The Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority (NELHA), a state research facility located on the Big Island of Hawaii, runs its own deep-source cooling plant. The system cools buildings on the agency's campus, which overlooks the Pacific Ocean. The plant draws 42.8-degree Fahrenheit (6-degree Celsius) seawater from a depth of 2,000 feet (610 meters).
"NELHA saves about [U.S.] $3,000 a month in electrical costs by using the cold seawater air-conditioning process," said Jan War, an operations manager. "We still use a freshwater loop to cool our buildings, since seawater is so corrosive."
I was told that co-generation of condensed water, both for drinking water and condensed in place in the soil to water plants, are of substantial benefit at the Hawaiian location.
And thanks for the article, Philip!
I heard somewhere that Dubai meets all its heating needs with human body heat for a good part of the year too;-)
Let's be clear about this -- ALL of the city's domestic water input goes through the heat exchanger used to cool downtown buildings. The system could be upsized to pump additional cold water, beyond what is required to meet citizen's water needs. But there would be an environmental impact from doing so.
The excess water, once run through the heat exchanger, would have to be discharged, with all its waste heat.
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